Catface and the Winter Village
by Capritarius
Summary: This popped into my head randomly a few days ago.  Imagine, if you will, a world not so different from our own...except with baby seals instead of dogs...yeah...and Santa Claus.
1. Chapter 1

It was a cold winter day. Not just any ordinary cold, or ordinary winter, or ordinary day. On the contrary, this cold was so cold it was less like a feel of the air and more like a strange spirit, a deity of unknown intent who's lack of life, of flesh and bone, of warm blood, was evident in the great cold he exhaled. Each breath he took smote the earth and made it sink deeper into itself a little more, as a wounded walrus from a polar bear. This winter was the coldest winter in a century, which was saying something in those mountains, where every year it froze sufficiently that one could take a rodent and swing it by its tail into a snowdrift and come up with a hairy popsicle. Assuming one wanted a hairy popsicle. Nille would.

Poor mouse.

And did I mention it was Christmas Eve?

The girl sat by the fireplace, not so much for the warmth (it wouldn't have helped much anyway from winter's breath), but because she liked it there: it gave her a chance to think. When all else was dark, and the fire was the only light there, she found it calming, like staring at the heart of the world, a vast treasure, all hers. She would talk to the fires as she would never talk to her siblings, or her mother, or even her pet seal, Nille. She would stare for hours into the eyes of the fire and be mesmerized, and pour out her hopes and dreams and fears, for among her poor and practical family, she was a dreamer, something that had earned her many scoldings. The fire's gaze never wavered from hers. The flame would hiss and sputter, and toss to and fro, but at heart, fire was fire, and this fire was hers. But this day, indeed the fire did waver. In fact, it went out completely, and the world was suddenly a colder, harsher place.

Suddenly, there came a knock at the door, and the girl, confused, scared, a little angry now that the initial shock was over, cautiously edged to the window by the door and, parting the curtains just so as to see who was there, peered warily at the visitor. Normally, there would be no need to be so cautious, but strange conditions breed strange men, and highwaymen were not so uncommon in the winter as to put a lowly passersby out of suspicion. Nille, the baby seal, whined and flolloped over to the girl's side, mewling. The girl picked the little fuzzball up and scratched behind his ears, holding him up so as to see out the window as well. Standing at the door was a stooped, shadowy figure.

It was leaning lightly on a cane, and the girl had the nagging feeling that it didn't even need the old warped stick. An enormous pack was strapped to its back, of sufficient size as to put a full-grown seal inside, if one were good at chopping and organizing, and one had to be good at chopping and organizing this far north. The figure's face was obscured not only by the snow, but by a curious hat. It was not a snow-hat, or a workman's cap, but a funny sort of hat, fancy, impractical. A little tattered by travel, perhaps, but not unlike one the girl had seen in a showy catalogue left by a door-to-door salesman. Of course, her mother had not taken kindly to the peculiar man, and the poor woebegone had been sent packing with a stinging swipe with a broom. Her mother was a crackshot with a broomstick. The man had dropped a few catalogues, and the girl had pilfered one while her mother had been busy ranting and raving.

The girl was unsure whether she should open the door or not. Certainly, the figure was suspicious, but if the shadowy figure meant them ill intent, then Nille would have cried out, squealed, perhaps even attempted to bite the window. Nille was ever a capricious and spirited little seal. She peered into Nille's liquid brown eyes and found approval, and so she opened the door.


	2. Chapter 2

"Evenin', ma'am. 'Tis dreadful cold out, be it not?"

The voice was lilting, young and warm, that of a pleasant middle-aged man.

"Mind if I step inside, then? I fear t' perish, and if ma'am would be much obliged as t' preserve the life of an 'onest workin' rapscallion…"

The girl had no choice but to stand aside, and the strange man walked in with a springy step unlike the usual gait of one who had undergone a midnight traipse into a freezing woodland. The man stamped his feet, as if doing a jig, then removed his hat (which was a dull purplish-red) to brush snow off the brim. To the girl's surprise, the man was not middle-aged : in fact, he was about as old as her grandfather, with a grizzled mane of grayish hair that curled down to his collar, and a wrinkled, but not ugly or mishappen face that bespoke many laughs and smiles. The man's nose was neither squashed nor broken, a peculiarity in these parts, and he looked always as if about to burst into song. The girl imagined if Saint Nicholas had lost weight and gone traveling, he would look like this. Most strangely, the man's eyes : though a rich shade of copper, they seemed odd, breumy, as if one had diluted them by pouring in a small quantity of milk.

"Fire's out, then?" Asked the man, wheeling suddenly.

The girl nodded, shivering, as a chille wind had crept through the door.

"Sorry 'bout that," the man muttered apologetically, and stabbed at the door with his cane, closing it with a cold snap.

The man walked to the hearth, did a little jig, and spit onto the wood. Immediately, the blazing fire returned, as jolly as if it had never gone out. The man's eyes suddenly flashed a silvery-red as the light hit them. They were like a cat's eyes, and when they flashed thus so, it was as if they had expanded to fill his face.

The man looked around and winked. " 'Preciate it if y' didn' mention that t' anybody. Word get's around that there's a man with magic spit, I'll have me tongue cut out and dried, like a fresh walrus, ey?" The man laughed heartily, and the fire spurted briefly, as if in response.

The girl remembered her manners, and ,beggin' your pardon, sir, wagered that after such travel one would work up a turrible thirst, and would sir like a drink?

"Nah, I'm jus' passin' by on me way to ol' Saint Nick's."

The Girl blinked in surprise. Surely, Saint Nicholas was but a myth? A fable? The sort of story mothers told their children to make them behave, to make them wriggle with delight and fall asleep smiling?

The old man chuckled. "Nah, he's real, to be sure. Why wouldn' he be, ey?"

The girl had never heard someone ask such a question, and stammered out a reply that it was just one of those things : Everyone knew it.

The old man chuckled once more. "Ah, but people 'r' often strangely wrong, aren' they? Jus' becoz everybody says it doesn't make it any more th' truth, now does it?" He slammed the floor sharply with his cane, startling the girl and evoking a yelp from Nille. "I bet nobody says that there be men what can spit in hearths an' come up wi' fires, which is quite the same as everybody doesn't say there be men what can spit in hearths an' come up wi' fires. And the opposite o' that be that everybody _does _say there be men what can spit in hearths an' come up wi' fires, and if everybody and nobody are the same thing, who can y' b'lieve, ey?"

The girl was now thoroughly confused. Well, she was confused from the start, ever since the fire went out, but now things had sort of spiraled, and she had lost all track of the conversation around the second pass of the spitting in of hearths.

"An what abou' gravity? Or lightnin'? Know what those are? Well, nobody knows for sure, least of all those that came up wi' the names. When people can't quite understand somethin,' they makes sure that nobody else can. Everybody does it. Like Newton. He just muddled us up wi' his theories of 'universal gravitation,' but what is gravity, ey? What makes it? Nobody knows for sure. Or lightnin': we still don' understand quite what it is, we think we know, but do we? Or take people like Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, and their theories on th' human brain. They didn' explain nuthin' that wasn't thur fer anybody wi' half a brain to figure anyway, they just made up oodles o' psychobabble. No, sir, I don' need such nonsense. If I believe somethin,' t'will be becoz I've found proof meself, not cuz I'm told by jus' ordinary everybodies, or nobodies, or whatever they be."


	3. Chapter 3

The girl thought about this for a moment, then pondered aloud, sir, then what would you think was the source for gravity and lightning and the such?

"Well, to be sure, I don' know any better than anyone else, but at least I can admit it wi' a clear conscience and not be forced t' sound smarter than I am. But ah, shucks, guess you can't fix everythin' in life, ey? There's always somebody who thinks different, who stirs up trouble jus' cuz. There's always an exception, so to speak. Thas' why blanket terms are so inaccurate. You can't just say 'everybody' or 'nobody' without repercussions, without exceptions, you hear? But what's worse? Getting' impractical, accurate details or getting' general, inaccurate pictures? Either way, yer kinda stuck, aren't ya?"

The old man guffawed loudly and began polishing a pair of spectacles he had pulled from nowhere.

The girl wondered what spectacles were these, for to be sure they were quite an odd shape, and the girl had never seen anything like them.

"Oh, these? Tell ya the truth, I'm blind." That would explain the milky look in his eyes. "Yessir, I polish these here spectacles cuz I don' see any reason not to. Helps me think. I ain' as young as I used t'be, y'know."

The girl remembered her manners and said that sir didn't seem so very old, and how, why, my grandfather has gray hair as well and he can barely walk, let alone walk in a blizzard.

"Thas' vurry kind of you, ma'am, but what you think and what another person sees are quite different. Fer instance, one might think you was crazy, talkin' to fire, but you don' think yer crazy, now do ya?"

The girl froze, her tongue tied. Nille mewled.

"Wonderin' how I know 'bou' that, ey? Well, I knows a lot, to be sure." He nodded over at the fire. "He told me."

The girl was about to ask how sir could talk to fire, then realized what he was getting at, thought better of it, and once again queried on Old Saint Nick.

"Oh, that ol' scalawag? Well, we goes a long, long way back. I visits him every winter, but this time th' blizzard caught me off guard, it did. I crashed nearby, in th' woods."

Crashed?

"Anyway, yer probl'y wonderin' how could Ol' Nicholas be real, ey? Why does everybody say he ain'? Well, 'e' doesn't like the attention. 's'why he sticks up thur in the North Pole anyway. An' as people grow up, they jus' dismiss 'im as a child's story, fer better or fer worse. As fer the government, well, they could probly squeeze some answers out 'o' 'im, try steal his magic, but nobody's dumb enough to go up against Saint Nick in familiar turritory. The' government's gotta keep up 'ppearances, you hear?"

"Ah, tis sad, tis sad." The old man shook his head. "Lots 'o' th' time, governments only care abou' image, image, image. Most everyone thinks it, but, 'course nobody says so out loud, or does somethin' 'bout it."

The girl asked, if the government was so evil, then why did people do nothing?

"Well, everybody's scared. They don' know 'xactly how much or what the government can do. It's the fear that counts, not the reality. You know, more oft than not those two are right opposites, y'know? Ah, ever since the government started up the slave trade agin, everythin' in this province's turned topsy-turvy. You know, this place used t'be a monarchy, ruled over by two kings, a queen, and the family Holy Goat. But 'o' course, they may not have the titles anymore, but we're still a monarchy."

The girl had never heard this before, and said so.


	4. Chapter 4

"Course, the government hushes up quite a lot. 'S'called propaganda, an' it's as old as order and peace are.

Ah, I've spoke a bit too much, I 'ave. I'll be going now, I 'spose. Thanks for the tea."

The old man lifted a sealskin flask of what was evidently tea. Funny, thought the girl, for she did not remember ever even making tea in the first place. Nille gave a coughing chuckle, and the girl, in concern, looked towards the seal's ink-black eyes. Nille cocked his head quizzically, as if to ask why he was being stared at, for he did not remember doing anything wrong. He had not broken the plates or tracked snow into the house or been too loud recently in his own fuzzy white memory.

The girl looked back, to bid the old man farewell, and was alarmed to see nothing there. She rushed to the door and looked out in earnest, but there was nothing. The blizzard had already covered any tracks that might have been there, and surely the girl would have heard the door, or felt the cold, had the man left that way? Confused, dazed, unsure if the man had been there at all, the girl returned to sitting next to the fire. She gazed into its depth and could have sworn, for a moment, that she saw 2 opaque, silvery-red orbs floating in the fire's throat.

She blinked, rubbing her eyes. Perhaps she was getting sleepy…egad! Was that the time? The old man had been there for longer than she had thought. Nille chewed on the tail of a rodent he had caught.

Poor mouse.

The snow had lightened, the fire turned blue.

Did I mention it was Christmas?


End file.
